Wireless communication devices, such as mobile phone handsets, typically incorporate a number of distinct and operably coupled sub-systems, in order to provide the wide variety of functions and operations that a complex wireless communication device needs to perform. Interfaces are defined for communicating between the respective sub-systems.
Such sub-systems may include radio frequency power amplification functions, radio frequency integrated circuits comprising radio frequency generation, amplification, filtering logic, etc. as well as baseband integrated circuits (BBIC) comprising audio circuits, encoding/decoding, (de)modulation functions, processing logic, etc. and memory units. Typically, the baseband integrated circuits are provided as one or more baseband modules that can be operably coupled to one or more RF modules in which the RF integrated circuit is implemented.
Wireless communication devices typically have to comply with different communication standards, such as for example those named Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Universal Mobile Telephone Service (UMTS) and others. However, different communication standards may specify different carrier frequencies, different symbol rates and/or other parameters. Those parameters may have an effect on the requirements imposed on the interfaces between the respective subsystems. Accordingly, different interfaces may be required for different communication standards.